1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to a dryer with a modular blower assembly that allows easy assembly and easy field servicing through replacement of the blower assembly as a unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wall or surface mounted dryers have been used for many years in washrooms for drying a person's hands. Originally, most of these dryers used low velocity air, causing the drying process of the hands to be fairly slow. To speed up the drying process, many manufacturers created high-speed or high velocity hand dryers. As the velocity of the air increased, the noise level also increased. In certain high usage situations, such as airports and sporting facilities, the noise from high-speed hand dryers could be exceptionally loud and propagate well beyond the washrooms. Currently manufacturers have had little success in reducing the noise level of hand dryers without negatively affecting the performance.
Currently, in the United States, the ADA requires that protruding objects with leading edges of more than 27 inches and not more than 80 inches above the finished floor or ground shall not protrude more than 4 inches maximum horizontally into a circulation pathway, such as a hallway or passageway. Many facilities also have substantial design limitations where hand dryers may actually be installed, including when considering the flow of people entering and exiting a washroom. Currently, all traditional hand dryers mounted to walls must be mounted much higher than 27 inches from the ground to be functional, leaving only two options to meet ADA requirements. The first option is to recess the dryer into the wall so that it protrudes less than 4 inches while the second option is to use a low-profile dryer having a complete thickness when mounted of less than 4 inches. Low-profile hand dryers having a thickness of less than 4 inches are expensive when compared to traditional hand dryers and are not capable of providing high-speed air drying. Furthermore, low-profile hand dryers are difficult to use, as a user typically needs to place their hands extremely close to the supporting surfaces to insert them into the air stream. Given the positioning of the hands, the user typically contacts the wall at least once during the drying process. Hand dryers recessed into the wall are also problematic as most facility managers avoid any major modifications to the walls of a washroom. Currently, there are no hand dryers that provide compact, low-profile, ADA compliant, surface mounted hand dryers.
The blower assembly of many hand dryers is formed out of a variety of components and is typically difficult to assemble. For example, each of the components is typically attached through some fastening mechanism to the other components and then installed inside a hand dryer. The method of assembly also makes it difficult to field service dryers as a specialized electrician must be called because the electronics and components making the blower assembly are all installed in various locations within the shell of the dryer creating potential hazards for non-electricians. Therefore, field servicing of hand dryers is typically expensive, or the complete dryer unit must be replaced. Many times, the problem with complete replacement is that the new dryer does not match the old dryer and extensive rewiring of the facility or structural renovations must be performed to accommodate the new dryer. During this time period, the washroom may be without an operational hand dryer which for smaller washrooms having at most one hand dryer creates potential issues. Therefore, it is undesirable for the hand dryer to be non-operational for any period of time as well as it is undesirable to require a skilled electrician to service the unit. In addition, requiring a skilled electrician to service the unit may lengthen the time until a service call may be performed.